The work Life is a wheel was born from a conversation of the artist with Mario Fiorentini, a partisan of 1918 who was operative in numerous actions in the Roman territory. In particular, the narration of the attack on the Regina Coeli prison led Schivardi to conceive a traveling performance in the city, emulating the route with the means used by the partisan: the bicycle. On December 26, 1943, Fiorentini threw an explosive package from a bicycle at the entrance of the Regina Coeli while 28 German soldiers were taking turns. Thanks to the agility of the vehicle, he managed to escape the fire. Immediately afterwards an ordinance was issued by the German military command which prohibited the use of bicycles in Rome. In those years even Gino Bartali in many cases pretended to train to make deliveries to the partisans. More generally, during the days of the resistance in Italy, the bicycle was the most important means of transporting documents that coordinated the brigades. Starting from these stories, the artist built the performance with the intention of tracing the anti-fascist action of Fiorentini on a bicycle, retracing as faithfully as possible the path he made that December 26th. The action, shot with cameras placed at different points along the route, gave rise to a video with its own formal autonomy.
The action is completed with a surprise ending that sees Fiorentini and Schivardi meet in the square and find themselves, together with the public, spectators of the video projection of the performance. Their presence generates a new action, we could say a meta performance, in which historical references are untied from the past to reformulate a strong and current message.
G.Benassi
Comments are closed